solarbird

joined 1 year ago
[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I've printed a couple of spools at different sizes, it's really kind of nice to have them. Particularly smaller spools for smaller sample lengths, super worth it.

But another thing you can do is just print a little single-wall cylinder that friction fits inside one of your existing spools, then cut the existing (non-printed) spool in half down the middle and use the cylinder as a friction-fit sleeve to hold the two halves together. That also gives you the same functionality. It's not as cool but it saves on filament? ^_^

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eyyy, someone else playing with PHA!

I have a bunch of PHA commentary (and experimentation) over on the kbin 3d-printing group:

https://kbin.social/m/3DPrinting/t/40862/PHA-filament-heat-resistance-testing

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, under the build plate there are four bolts pointing down. Those bolts.

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Or stash bricks of it in dead salt mines.

Seriously. All the carbon in it comes from plants which means it came from CO2 in the atmosphere. Stored this way, it's a medium-term (as in hundreds of years) carbon store.

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

My next printer will be multifilament ^_^

I'm already doing like four-colour prints with my 3v2 but obviously there are severe limits in placement.

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It has pegs but I was able to see that there are rather typical screw heads in the heating plate to hold it down onto the bed's support frame, and if you look you can see the bolt ends coming down out of the underside of the supporting arms.

So I think what's here is pretty simple: regular bolts with fixed length spacer tubes around them.

And that means that OP should be able to sort this out with, say, the right collection of 0.5mm-thick washers. One on the front left screw, three on the right rear screw, uh, six on the back left screw should get close enough for the mesh to handle the remaining difference.

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

HVAC assist system. It cut our peak electricity bill by 40% year over year under similar conditions, too, with substantially better performance.

But really it's very simple. All I'm doing is improving the effectiveness of very traditional methods of temperature control by being more accurate and much more aggressive about exchanging air in and out when appropriate. Obviously in the middle of a 90-110F heat wave that's not going to matter, so it's more of a northern thing - but it really does a great deal in a lot of climates. (And in spring and autumn in more southern climates, I suppose.)

One of the key elements is that outdoor temperature varies a lot from point to point on the property, so we have air exchange measured at five points around the house, keyed to local indoor vs. local outdoor air temperature. (And air quality and a few other things, of course.) The actual air exchange is a combination of the original air-exchange system plus just opening and closing windows. We overcool at night with air exchange so we're always below ambient outdoor temperature during the day.

It's remarkably effective. We went from... well, it varied a lot, but +7 to +10 F above ambient to -7 to -5 below. (I was doing all this in C internally but F because I was talking about it to Americans.)

Again, I'm in an environment where this is particularly effective, but it costs so little and saves so much money and energy use I have to think it has some general utility many places.

Here are some of my posts about it:

https://solarbird.net/blog/tag/ambient-hvac/

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People sell them on craigslist fairly often, if you have that. Just be honest about the problems. It'll also help if you kept the original parts and sell them with it.

(I don't suppose you're in Seattle, are you?)

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. More sense than the Magic Mouse, at least. xD

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks! And honestly it's one of the best parts of 3D printing, being able to come up with things like this.

The really annoying part is that the indoor matching sensor, the companion to this one? That USB port sticks out the side, like it was designed by a sane person. xD

 

I know this is incredibly niche but if you need it, you kinda really need it. xD

Anyway, as part of my ongoing air-exchange-based HVAC project, I have an outdoor air quality sensor from Ambient Weather (no sponsorship, I bought with my own money, etc). It's battery/solar powered, and that's fine... except for the part where that doesn't work here in the winter. We just don't get enough sun or close to it.

But it plugs in to charge and keeps working when plugged in, so winner winner chicken dinner, right?

WRONG! Because to do that you have to take the bottom off the case, and then, the charge plug sticks directly out from the bottom facing down, like a goddamn Apple Magic Mouse.

So maybe I can't fix the mouse, but I can fix this, and so I have made a printable tray and rack system that lets you use it that way without it being stupid. Enjoy!

https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/8c/fc/44/4e/16/fceb8b64-655b-4677-9233-0eb649cab5a9.jpg

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not. I have nothing against the actor but yeah. Jim Carey every time.

[–] solarbird@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I build everything (including our homebrew media server) but for a NAS I still just bought a Synology box. Part of that is the main purpose of the box is to be a RAIDed repository for automatic workstation backups and I was willing to pay for a known-good turnkey device that talks to everything in the world right out the gate.

I haven't regretted it once.

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